上海灘 (黃沾）

    Shanghai Shores (James Wong) 

浪奔，

浪流，

萬裏滔滔江水永不休。

    They dash.

    They glide.

    Over ten thousand li rippling,

    The Yangtze water has never died.

淘盡了

世間事，

混作滔滔一片潮流。

    Every affair of the world it pans out and

    Into these waves it blends.

是喜，

是愁？

浪裏分不清歡笑悲憂。

    Am I happy, or

    Am I sad?

    There's no telling from the waves.

成功，

失敗。

浪裏看不出有未有。

    Did I win, or

    Did I lose?

    There's no telling from the waves.

愛你恨你。

問君知否？

似大江一發不收。

    I have loved and hated you.

    O If you ever know!

    It's like the Yangtze water, once let loose,

    Turning-back is impossible.

轉千灣，

轉千灘。

亦未平複此中爭鬥。

    It has swirled over a thousand shores.

    It has swirled over a thousand bends.

    Yet it has never soothed the very strife within.

又有喜，

又有愁。

就算分不出歡笑悲憂。

仍願翻，

百千浪。

在我心中起伏夠。

    I am happy, and

    I am sad.

    Hard as it is to tell how this feels,

    By the hundreds and thousands I'll make them still, and

    Let the waves in my bosom rise and fall.

[I first heard the song as a boy from the TV series of the same title and have

loved it ever since. In college, I was so jealous when a classmate from Hainan

could sing it in Cantonese. No longer. I could do it after spending the whole

day on Jan 1, 2022, listening, drilling, and translating. Like other great 

works of human imagination, the song seems to have proved its staying power.]